Spiritual Meaning of

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Gen 2:5-7

The second chapter of Genesis instead of being, as is supposed by rationalizing critics, another account of creation, is the description of the Divine process in the carrying forward of the spiritual creation of man to the higher and celestial plane of life.

The celestial, or love man, different from the spiritual, or truth man, is formed and moved by the Divine love. It is because of this that the name Jehovah, or Lord, is placed in the foreground in the second chapter of Genesis; for the name Lord stands for God as to His Divine love. But in what sense are we to view the man whose formation is so minutely described in this chapter? Is he to be conceived of as an individual; or is he to be regarded as the type of a community?

The verbal expressions of the story, as well as the dictates of sound reason, show that the man of the Genesis story is the communal man. This is, of course, away from the ordinary interpretation, but there are several circumstances mentioned in the story that clearly indicate this as the true conception. For instance, it is said: "The Lord God called their name Adam, in the day that the Lord God created them." Also Cain, after he had slain Abel, said: "My punishment is greater than I can bear; and it shall come to pass that every one finding me will slay me." This statement certainly implies the existence of society.

There is another statement in the letter of the story which clearly indicates the existence of human society, When Cain went into the land of Nod, he is said to have known his wife who bore him a son whom they named Enoch and for whom a city was built and called after his name. If there existed no human society, where did Cain's wife come from? Where were workmen procured to build a city? Those whose existence, at that time, are inferred in the letter of the narrative, had no connection with and bore no relation to Adam.

The fact is, the story is a Divine parable. Adam is a race-name. It stands for a community of men and women who by the processes of regeneration, described in the first chapter of Genesis, were gradually separated, spiritually, from the general mass of human beings, and who had come into those excellencies of character which gifted them with the moral image and likeness of God. In other words, by the creation of Adam is meant the formation of the first church on this earth - the MostAncient Church.

Surely there is nothing irrational in this thought. It was then, as it was when the Lord came into the world and established the Christian Church. It was formed of all who accepted Him, and who, by their acknowledgment of Him, were separated, in motive and belief, from the outlying mass who rejected Him.

The name Adam occurs in the second and third chapters of Genesis a great many times; and in every instance it is put with the definite article - "the Adam." This shows that the name Adam is not the appellation of an individual. It is a nominal expression of kind. The Adam, or the man, indicated the community - the society - the church; and the idea is that of a human association of people possessing the graces and excellencies of genuine religion.

The people who formed this church of the childhood of the race, were of a heavenly genius. Their whole being was alive with the consciousness of the Divine love. They reached up to the highest things; and the life of the Lord descending through them, gave a living and human quality to the most external things of their lives. This coming down of the Divine life into the most external plane of their being and gifting it with a human quality is what is meant by the Lord forming man of the dust of the ground.

Keep the mind on the spiritual plane of thought, for by the dust of the ground is not meant natural dust, but natural dust is used to symbolize that which in itself is dead and external. Not only the souls of these most ancient people, but their minds, yea their very bodies shared in the influx and formative power of the life of God. The Lord dwelt in their souls, and through their souls illuminated their minds, and through their minds filled their very material bodies with sensations of joy and delight. The very dust of their mental ground was made alive - imbued with a human quality. How much more worthy of the Divine Creator this conception is! What a profound interest it creates in the Divine Book!

And the breath of lives breathed into the nostrils of Adam - how easy, now that we see that Adam stands for a highly developed heavenly society, to see in that breathing the symbol of how the Divine and heavenly life came to the people who constituted this first church! The nostrils, through which odors, good or bad, are sensed, stand for the mental faculties of perception. The people of the long ago golden age had an internal and living perception of what was good and true. The Lord's life of goodness and truth came to them as a matter of inward perception. It was breathed into their souls; and it came, not as the breath of life, but as the breath of lives, for that is what is said in the original text.

Man has a will and an understanding. Today the understanding is separated from the will and made capable of an intellectual elevation above the will; but this was not the case with the Adamic man. His will and understanding were united. Good from the Lord flowed, in an internal way, into his will and passed immediately into his understanding and became there, in an intellectualized form, the truth to guide him. Good in the will, truth in the understanding were God's breath in the most ancient man. It was in him the breath of lives - the life of good, and the life of truth from that good.

When we speak of the church formed among these people we must think of it as a heavenly state of life in them. They had no outward book or revelation. They saw what was good and true from perception. They had - that is, the more interior among them - open communication with heaven; and from heaven they knew the heavenly correspondence of the objects of nature that surrounded them. Their internal sight made one with their external sight. When they looked upon natural objects, they saw what we see, but, different from us, their minds were immediately elevated to see the heavenly meaning of natural objects.

Nature to them was what the letter of the Word is to a well-instructed New Churchman, a vast symbol of the Divine mind. They could ascend from Nature to Nature's God. Heaven was then close to the earth and they saw it mirrored in all the beautiful forms of natural life. Their whole being, soul, mind and body, was open to the Divine influxes. They lived and moved in the current of the Divine harmonies. And when we read of this Most Ancient Church, we are not to think of cathedrals and church structures, of priests, rituals or outward sacraments. All these came when man had fallen away from his primeval state. The people of the Golden Age lived simple pastoral life. The father in the family was the head and the priest, and the church was an innocent, yet wise life in the hearts, and revelation was the voice of the heavenly Father in their souls.